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Dialogue Education 2010

Capital punishment

Contents • • • • • •

Page 3 Teacher invaders on Capital Punishment Page 4 YouTube Video – Execution History Page 5 -7 Background Page 8 – 10 Buddhism & Capital Punishment Page 11-13 Judaism & Capital Punishment Page 15 YouTube Video – ENOUGH ROPE Sister Helen Prejean • Page 16-18 Islam & Capital Punishment • Page 19-23 Christianity & Capital Punishment • Page 24 Bibliography

Teacher Invaders

• Click on the image above for a game of “Teacher Invaders”. Try playing the game with your students at the start and the end of the unit. Make sure you have started the slide show and are connected to the internet. 3

YOUTUBE Video – Execution History • Click on the image to the right. You will need to be connected to the internet to view this presentation. • Enlarge to full screen

Capital Punishment

•Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the killing of a person by judicial process for retribution and incapacitation.

Capital Punishment

•Capital punishment has been practiced in virtually every society, excluding those with state religious proscriptions against it.

Capital Punishment • Today, most countries are considered by Amnesty International as abolitionists, which allowed a vote on a resolution to the UN to promote the abolition of the death penalty.

Buddhism & Capital Punishment

• There is disagreement among Buddhists as to whether or not Buddhism forbids the death penalty.

Buddhism & Capital Punishment The final chapter of the Dhammapada, states, "Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures”.

Buddhism & Capital Punishment

Historically, most states where the official religion is Buddhism have imposed capital punishment for some offenses.

Judaism & Capital Punishment • The official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent, and in practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical.

Judaism & Capital Punishment In law schools everywhere, students read the famous quotation from the 12th century legal scholar, Maimonides, • "It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."

Judaism & Capital Punishment • Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.

YOUTUBE Video – Dead Man Walking - Execution • Click on the image to the right. You will need to be connected to the internet to view this presentation. • Enlarge to full screen

YOUTUBE Video – ENOUGH ROPE - Sister Helen Prejean -.mp4 • Click on the image to the right. You will need to be connected to the internet to view this presentation. • Enlarge to full screen

Islam & Capital Punishment

•Scholars of Islam hold it to be permissible but the victim or the family of the victim has the right to pardon.

Islam & Capital Punishment

•Sharia Law or Islamic law may require capital punishment, there is great variation within Islamic nations as to actual capital punishment.

Islam & Capital Punishment • "If anyone kills person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people" (Qur'an 5:32).

Christianity & Capital Punishment • Although some interpret that Jesus' teachings condemn the death penalty in The Gospel of Luke and The Gospel of Matthew regarding Turning the other cheek, and John 8:7 in which Jesus intervenes in the stoning of an adulteress, rebuking the mob with the phrase "may he who is without sin cast the first stone", others consider Romans 13:3-4 to support it.

Roman Catholic Church & Capital Punishment

• In a June, 2004 memo to the U.S. Bishops, Pope Benedict XVI (then known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) made this statement : "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia.

Roman Catholic Church & Capital Punishment

• The Church has traditionally accepted capital punishment as per the theology of Thomas Aquinas (who accepted the death penalty as a necessary deterrent and prevention method, but not as a means of vengeance; see also Aquinas on the death penalty).

Anglicans & Capital Punishment • The Lambeth Conference of Anglican and Episcopalian bishops condemned the death penalty in 1988: “This Conference: ... 3. Urges the Church to speak out against: ... (b) all governments who practice capital punishment, and encourages them to find alternative ways of sentencing offenders so that the divine dignity of every human being is respected and yet justice is pursued;....”

Methodists & Capital Punishment

•Methodists condemn capital punishment, saying that it cannot accept retribution or social vengeance as a reason for taking human life.

Bibliography • The Dalai Lama - Message supporting the moratorium on the death penalty • Buddhism & Capital Punishment from The Engaged Zen Society • Orthodox Union website: Rabbi Yosef Edelstein: Parshat Beha'alotcha: A Few Reflections on Capital Punishment • Jews and the Death Penalty - by Naomi Pfefferman (Jewish Journal) • Priests for Life - Lists several Catholic links • The Death Penalty: Why the Church Speaks a Countercultural Message by Kenneth R. Overberg, S.J., from AmericanCatholic.org • Wrestling with the Death Penalty by Andy Prince, from Youth Update on AmericanCatholic.org • "Capital Punishment“ . Catholic Encyclopedia New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Capital_Punishm ent. • Roland Nicholson, Pope John Paul II: Mourning and Remebrance, The Catholic Church and the Death Penalty, by Roland Nicholson, Jr. • Capital Punishment Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment